Editor: Mark Schone
Updated: Today
Topic:

2006 Elections

Rgm chng bgns @ hm

A drive to register voters via text messages.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign sent out an e-mail last week boasting that it was on the "cutting edge of technology." Proof? The campaign would be sending out updates on the California GOP convention via text messages. "'SMS' or text messages are short messages that come straight to your cell phone," the campaign explained to would-be Republican techno-hipsters. "This weekend they will give you the inside scoop on what is happening, where it is happening and where you need to be to join the action as it happens."

Which is all well and good until somebody does you one better. A group called Voto Latino announced today that it is launching the first nationwide effort to register voters by text messaging. The drive is focused on registering young Latinos for the November elections. The logic, according to Voto Latino co-founder Rosario Dawson: If 65 million people were willing to text their votes for "American Idol," perhaps at least a few of them might pick up their phones to sign up for something a little more important.

2006 Elections in the news

Loading...

Currently in Salon

  • The Democrats' lust to win at any cost stripped abortion from the healthcare bill. Can pro-choicers put it back?
  • Why the hopeless story of a ghetto teen is just the kind of movie black people need right now
  • The fall of the Berlin Wall, 9/11 and the collapse of Lehman Brothers: Each ushered in a new American era
  • Don Draper and the denizens of Sterling Cooper take drastic measures in the face of a brave new world
  • Inside the elaborate, disturbing and downright riveting world of child-beauty pageants
  • This just in from the Institute for the Advancement of Conservative Science: History began on 1/20/09!
  • A memoirist searches for the truth about a fatal shooting in 1960s Phoenix
  • The untold story of Johnny Cash, protest singer and Native American activist, and his feud with the music industry
  • My partner says he's just not attracted to me "right now"
  • The aftermath of Wall Street's meltdown reminds me of the aftermath of the Berlin Wall's fall. Not in a good way